Living USI 24-7:
Ryan Miller and Ziena Clarkson Miller
 Nickelaziena Clarkson Miller and Ryan Miller |
Area coordinators lead a different sort of life. Live-in staff members in the Department of Residence Life, they are assigned to a specific apartment complex or residence hall, where they supervise resident assistants (RAs) and oversee student groups and apartment operations. They live and work with students.
But Ryan Miller and Nickelaziena Clarkson Miller, two of USI’s six area coordinators, had a brief respite from University life recently – they went on their honeymoon. The couple were married October 18 at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Evansville and took a four-night Caribbean cruise.
They met as graduate students in the Student Affairs Administration and Higher Education program at Ball State University.
Ryan, who is from Greenfield, Indiana, started out on a different career track. After acquiring a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications and geography from Ball State, he took a friend’s advice and enrolled in the Student Affairs program. He’d planned to get a master’s degree in geography and become a meteorologist, but decided he liked Student Affairs better. “I like talking to people,” he said.
Ziena has a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from Georgia Southern University. “I knew I wanted to go into Student Affairs before I declared a major,” she said. “I had good experiences with orientation, housing, and mentors, so it was an easy choice. I’m doing what I enjoy doing. It’s never the same thing two days in a row.”
At Ball State they were members of a small staff who worked together, lived together, attended class together, and shared a culture and acronym-rich language of their own. “Your colleagues become your social network,” Ziena said. Their friends recognized the chemistry between them before they did.
“My RAs used to say, ‘You and Ryan are going to get married some day,’” Ziena said. “At the time, I wasn’t even thinking about dating him.”
They knew each other for a year before they started dating. During an immersion course that included a tour of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) their colleagues repeatedly asked them when they were going to start dating. “When we got back to Ball State, we started hanging out and never really stopped,” Ziena said. “We had been seeing each other for a month before I said, ‘Can we have our first date?’”
After they graduated from Ball State in 2006, Ryan was hired as an area coordinator at USI, and Ziena joined Student Development as program advisor for Greek Life. Both of them had a USI connection. Ryan met Laurie Berry, director of Residence Life, through their professional organization, Great Lakes Association of College and University Housing Officers (GLACUHO).
Ziena knew David Duvall, assistant director of Student Development, from Georgia Southern. “I was on his first orientation team there. It was nice because when I came to USI, I had someone who understood where I was coming from. Housing was comfortable for me too, because I knew Ryan and his colleagues. It wasn’t a room full of strangers when I came here.”
The couple found USI willing to accommodate their relationship. Ziena said, “Ryan interviewed some places where he could have a cat but he couldn’t have me.”
Ryan added, “One place actually said I had to show ‘ownership’ of Ziena.”
Ziena has since joined Residence Life and oversees the O’Daniel South Apartments, Ryan’s first assignment. He requested to be transferred to a residence hall in order to build closer relationships with the students. “It sounds weird but I don’t mind being called at three in the morning,” he said. “That’s the stuff that keeps it interesting for me. Frustrating sometimes, but interesting.”
Ziena prefers the more independent students in the apartments. “I like seeing students who are already successful,” she said.
Ryan is area coordinator for O’Bannon Hall (where the couple live) and Ruston Hall. Their apartment is similar to the suites the freshmen inhabit, but with a full kitchen, washer and dryer, living room, and bedroom.
“Sometimes it’s nice to live on campus, and sometimes we need to get away,” Ziena said. “We get used to the extra noise. And we don’t have to drive home.”
She said Residence Life does an exceptional job of protecting the privacy of its professional staff. The area coordinators take turns on call every week. “After hours, it’s unusual that a student will knock on our apartment door,” Ziena said. “We get to have our nights and weekends.”
Wendy Knipe Bredhold
News & Information Services
812/461-5259 or wkbredhold@usi.edu
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